Quarters for the night.

I selected the quarters for the night not without some anxiety, for the natives were evidently in force in our immediate neighbourhood, and their shrill cries kept us all awake, though the day’s march had been an arduous one.  We had made good upwards of twenty miles:  the ground, except in Lucky Valley, was of a most trying character:  the thermometer at noon 102 degrees, and with nearly 150 pounds weight among seven of us, for the sick hand was of course relieved as far as possible.  I got the requisite observation for latitude during the night; and since necessity is ever the mother of invention, read off my sextant by a torch made for the occasion from pieces of paperbark.  It will easily be believed, that I did not needlessly prolong the work; for the light of the torch rendered me a prominent mark for any prowling savage to hurl his spear at:  however, His Eye, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike, watched over our safety, and we spent the night in security if not in silence.

November 14.

The morning broke, and we found ourselves apparently alone in the solitudes of the forest:  no sound or sign indicated the presence of its more rightful proprietors.  Did the savage so soon prepare to yield to the advancing movement of that hitherto fatal civilization before which his name, his race, nay, all traces of his rude existence may ere long pass into oblivion? or did the gathering of the night, and the apparent peaceful aspect of the morn, denote that one gallant struggle would be made ere a strange shout of triumph woke the silent echoes with the glorious name with which we had dignified our new discovery, and which throughout the world sounds as the appropriate title of the fair sovereign of its mightiest people?

Return to reach hopeless.

A rapid walk brought us to our old bivouac by ten o’clock, without anything of particular interest having occurred upon the route.  We found only one boat at Reach Hopeless, Captain Wickham having gone down the river with the others in order to hasten the watering party.  In another chapter will be found some more detailed remarks upon the peculiar and distinctive character of the Victoria; they will not be uninteresting to the reader who feels any of that curiosity which is in part an incitement to the discoverer.

We learnt from the party at the boat that a large body of the natives had been down watching their movements, and apparently intending if possible to surprise them.  Though they had approached very near, they would not have been seen but for a shooting party, which got a view of them from an overlooking height, crawling along the ground with evident caution.  They were probably the same party we had encountered higher up, and had traced our trail backwards, in order to see whence, and in what force we had entered their territory.  Little did they imagine, as they gazed upon our small party and its solitary boat, that they had seen the harbingers of an approaching revolution in the fortunes of their country!